November 30, 2005

Our life, that's a good one, our death, that's a better one, yet we keep coming back, keep coming back, it's like an AA Meeting around here. We keep trying to say it, say what, we don't know, we haven't a clue, the words that would matter, what a laugh. The words that would calm us, what a howl. The words that would put us to rights--stop, you're killing us. If there's one thing we can't abide it's a happy ending. It's a sin against the feasible. To say it, to say what, to say it, to say what, like trying to summon the dead and make them live again. The ancient heartache, time, time is killing us, we'll die if it doesn't cut it out. To say it, to say what. What our heart knows. That, my friend, is the funniest thing you've said all day.

Keg Kept a Flowin' by the Boneless Ones is the song we wish we'd had on tap in the Little house "playroom" (yep, that's what we called it) back in the late eighties. Thanks, Strange Reaction, for turning us on to it and to the priceless Tales of Terror (whose lead guitarist Lyon Wong aka Emperor Fuckshit was beaten to death, no shit, by a high-school athlete in 1986, thus making his the most apropos punk rock death of all time, easy) track, LSD for Africa.

What could be better than a bare-chested rock god? Easy, a bare-chested rock god who loves America! And Mark Farner is that rock god. Farner, of course, is non-Brewer-Schlecter member of Grand Funk Railroad, the band that put the "American" in "We're an American Band". Like many another washed-up rock bozo, Mark is not ashamed to wrap himself in the red, white, and blue, as evidenced by his 2002 "Red, White and Blue Forever" EP, or to worship Jesus (the biggest rock star of them all!) as evidenced by his 1991 "Some Kind of Wonderful" LP, which leaves no doubt whatsoever that Mark's "Some Kind of Wonderful" is 2,000 years old and had a penis! Where would we be without great rock patriots without Mark Farner? It doesn't bear thinking about. He's the greatest American since Charlie Daniels, and proof that God plays a mean guitar.

In a November 1975 Creem Magazine interview, Rod Stewart spoke about his artistic frustrations with his then band, the Faces: "It's too much hard work. Some of the best things I've ever done on their albums have never seen the light of day. I mean "Silicone Grown," that one I wrote about silicone tits. I was really proud of that cause it's a difficult subject to write about and it just got lost."

As the great GFR sing on one of their many many great songs, "Little Johnny Hooker", which as you no doubt know can be found on Side Two of their tremendous and impossible-to-overrate Shinin' On LP from 1974, which was produced by the inimitable Todd Rundgren and features the supersmash "Please Me," whose chorus goes:

Yes, the long-haired "shamen" who made up Grand Funk Railroad were what one might call "street poets," Hot Rod McKuens who, in the words of a 1970 Circus Magazine article, don't "hang out with other groups, or for that matter, with anyone." The article then goes on to quote their manager, Terry Knight, as saying "The guys are so much into each other that they can communicate without really talking. Nobody else may know what they're talking about, but when they go on stage they know what they're doing." From the vantage point of 2005, we doubt whether there's anyone who would argue that Grand Funk Railroad is the greatest rock band of all time. Planet Magazine was right in 1971 when they adjudged GFR "Bigger Than the Beatles." But GFR's popularity can not be judged solely by the fact that there isn't a person in the world who hasn't heard of and wanted to have sexual relations with them. Their "influence" is global, cosmic, religious. They're as important as gravity. Seriously, is there anyone in the world who doubts whether, if "We're an American Band" were to suddenly unhappen, the entire population of planet Earth would descend into madness and chaos? We would personally tear our eyeballs from our eye sockets and shove them into our nostrils for "We're an American Band", and we're sure you would too. As the abovementioned Circus Magazine writer, Danny Goldberg, notes, "It's a very confusing business to be both famous and real." Yet Grand Funk Railroad managed to pull it off, and to "tear that hotel down" while they were at it. No, you don't have to be a "young chiquita from Omaha" to want to "meet the boys in the band." You just have to have ears in your head that aren't connected to any other organ in your body. The "Funkers" (as they're known to their billions of fans) were hairy cocksmen/ecologists who wanted to "Save the Land" and "Stop the War," but they weren't, inexplicably enough, universally beloved, at least back in 1970. (Humans were stupider then.) To quote Mr. Danny Goldberg again, "So why don't people like them? Well, it depends on what you mean by 'people'." Thank you, Danny. And thank you, Grand Funk Railroad. Thank you for rocking. Thank you for rolling. But most of all, thank you for telling us to "Suck it."

Incorporates two of our favorite subjects: animals, in this case wild boar, playing cards; and the obsequious monkey butler. This serendipitous--and, we might add, surprisingly harmonious--nexus of cherished themes makes us as giddy as pig #2, as he prepares to throw down what appears to be the Ace of Spades. As for our monkey butler, he's either idly spectating or preparing to pick pig #3's pocket.